


Then, Baby, I'm Committing High Treason

by lanyon, lilibel



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: AU: Modern Setting, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 14:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2232462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilibel/pseuds/lilibel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Peggy Carter is an International Woman of Mystery but there's no one more mysterious than Howard Stark. In which there's a meet-cute and melancholy runs through the Brooklyn rain while listening to Leonard Cohen. In which, ultimately, there's room on Peggy's pedestal for three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Then, Baby, I'm Committing High Treason

They come home. They don’t come home complete but they do come home. If you asked anyone in their neighbourhood, they’d have told you: _Steve Rogers is always running headfirst into a fight. They’ll be picking him out of the Afghan sand and dust._

They close ranks, those Army boys. They close ranks, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. 

Steve has extensive scarring. Not that you’d see if he’s wearing a shirt with long sleeves. Not as much as he’d have had if Bucky hadn’t shielded him from the worst of the blast. Bucky lost his left arm, in the process. 

That’s what they always said, on their block. It’s all fun and games till someone loses—

Well.

Bucky lost his left arm but he saved Steve Rogers and he’d fight anyone who says it’s not a fair trade (he’d win, too).

They move into Steve’s mother’s old apartment. Bucky’s family have long since moved on. There’s a sister in the Army, a sister in Columbia and a sister in high school in Indiana, where George and Winifred moved to be closer to Winifred’s parents. 

They move into Steve’s mother’s apartment and no one knows they’re home till someone sees Steve at the subway station.

It’s not like Steve Rogers to keep his head down.

.

Peggy has grown used to living in Brooklyn. She has even grown partly used to Federal Plaza, where she’s on secondment for MI6 until Howard Stark’s international weapons expo is over and the international community can breathe again. She likes New York and how it is so many neighbourhoods, jigsawing together and nudging up close. She thinks she might prefer it to London, if that is not sacrilege of the highest order.

She could stand to do without the casual misogyny at work, though, and Jacqueline told her she’s not allowed to punch any FBI agents in the face, even the ones who continue to pretend that she’s the tea lady. 

The tea lady is a sweet women by the name of Mabel, with a tendency to mother lost souls. Peggy doesn’t have the heart to tell her that she is not lost, just a little impatient and a lot out of place. 

.

The first time Peggy Carter meets Steve Rogers is at a gym near Prospect Park. Sparks do not fly, so much as float, and there is no grace, though gravity plays its part with all due solemnity.

The gym is not far from where she lives and the decor is blinding orange and blue. Steve Rogers gets stuck in the turnstile on the way in, his bag strap getting tangled, his forward momentum brought up short and he stumbles, his sneakers squeaking loudly on the tiled floor. 

His own squeak is less than manly, as he saves himself with an outstretched hand, and Peggy’s laugh is less than supportive but, together, they untangle him. He’s blushing. None of the guys at Federal Plaza would blush. They would bluster. They would act as though it had all been intentional, like a particularly ruffled cat who had fallen from its perch, looking this way and that.

“Steve Rogers,” he says, holding out his hand. His arm is scarred, all the way up to his shoulder. His singlet hangs loosely and the scar continues along a line of collarbone, gnarled and raised and starkly ugly. She wonders how far it radiates beneath his clothes. 

“Peggy Carter,” she says, looking him in the eye. He holds her gaze but his eyes are a little flat, and very wary. Oh, she has seen these scars before. “Are you alright?”

He laughs and scrubs the back of his neck. Thumping his chest briefly, he says, “Apart from the palpitations.”

“Well, it’s one way to get started on cardio,” she says. 

“Well, it’s that or a double espresso,” he says, his hand still on his chest. “Wow.”

“Are you asking me out?” 

He blinks and she wonders if his palpitations have started again. 

.

“So, she’s super pretty, huh?”

“She really is, Buck, but it’s not just that. She’s so _smart_. And she’s really fit, too. Like, she totally owned the cross-trainer—”

“Seriously, Steve, you are not composing odes to gym equipment right now, are you?” Bucky puts down his beer and wipes his mouth on the back of his forearm. “I get it. She’s perfect. Is she a cyborg?” 

“What?”

“No, it’s just, if you’re into cyborgs, maybe you’d be interested to know that I met Howard Stark today—”

“Oh, shit, that was today? Buck, I’m sorry, I knew that. I should have asked—”

“Hey, no, it’s okay. You were busy.” Bucky looks up as Steve stands and hauls Bucky to his feet, too. Steve gives good hugs. Even when he was all elbows and ribs and sharp corners, he had this goddamned gift. Bucky is enveloped in Steve’s arms and, after a breath or two, he wraps his arm around Steve. It shouldn’t feel so safe but in the world of the one-armed man—

“I wasn’t that busy,” says Steve, against Bucky’s hair. “C’mon, I’ll order pizza and you can tell me what marvels Stark has planned for you.”

“He really is ridiculously excited.” Bucky’s words are probably muffled and the cotton of Steve’s t-shirt is a little damp. “Apparently, my, uh, injury is conducive to, ah, repair.”

“So, when do I get to talk to the guy? He doesn’t call. He doesn’t _write._ I swear, I left the army and it’s like I’m dead to him.”

“When do I get to talk to the _girl_?” asks Bucky. 

“Let me get to know her a bit first, Buck, before I lose her to your charms.”

“I swear, you’re the only person in the world who thinks I got charms.”

“Then I’m the only person who matters.”

Bucky doesn’t tell Steve how right he is. 

.

“Peggy Carter,” she says, holding out her hand. “M16.”

“Betsy Braddock. It’s an honour to meet you.” 

“I wasn’t aware that there were so many of us about.” 

“Yes, my brothers are here somewhere, too. We have a private security enterprise.”

“Rather bold of Stark to hold his weapons expo so close to Independence Day, wouldn’t you say?”

“I take it you haven’t met Howard Stark, then?”

“I’ve been spared that honour.”

“Ha,” says Betsy, plucking two champagne flutes from the tray of a passing waiter. She hands them both to Peggy, who quickly tucks her clutch under her arm in order to take them. Once Betsy is armed with two glasses of her own, she beams. 

“It’s important to be double-parked when dealing with evenings like this.”

Peggy looks around at the high ceilings, with ornate corner pieces, and at the gentle throng of the uncivilised and the great and the good. “I think evenings like this are properly _soirees_ , wouldn’t you say?”

“And we’re the exotic guests,” says Betsy, sipping her left-sided champagne. “Oh, how ghastly. Well, I’m all for playing it up, if you are.”

“Best foot forward.”

“Stiff upper lip.” 

.

“You’re an artist?”

Steve blushes. It’s remarkable. It’s like a slow-burning fuse, suffusing his skin in little red sparks. Peggy wonders at how easy it is to light the blue touchpaper. A complimentary word, a smile and the lightest touch of her fingertips to the underside of his wrist. 

“Well,” he says. “Aspiring. I’m a sophomore at Columbia. Art History and Visual Arts. So, if the art career fails, I can join the masses of college graduates with nowhere to go.”

Peggy sips her tea. It’s a passable English breakfast but nothing like the sturdy Yorkshire tea she drinks by the gallon at home. “What do you do? Painting or sculpture or—” She gestures. “I’m sorry, I’m showing off my complete ignorance of the artistic process here, aren’t I?”

“Ha, well. I’m not sure I have a process, as such?” Steve wrinkles up his nose, in a way that should not be so endearing but somehow is. “I paint, though, and sketch.” He smiles. “My mother despaired, of course, and my roommate still despairs. Charcoal _everywhere_.” He wraps his fingers around his coffee mug, which is big and chunky but somehow dwarved by his hands. His knuckles are scarred, with white-ridged tendrils. Shrapnel, most likely, Peggy thinks. 

She does not wonder at a man who speaks of what he is now and what he will become when he has such scars and damage in his past.

“So,” she says. “Tell me about your roommate.” 

(He must be a great man who makes Steve smile like that.)

.

There are times when Peggy desperately misses England. They happen during almost every assignment but she’s had few so tedious as this. Most of the world’s finest spy agencies will attend Stark’s expo, for intelligence, of course, and for recruitment. 

She was recruited fresh from A-levels. Her career at Oxford was closely scrutinised and she was shepherded into the Royal Navy by none other than Jacqueline Falsworth. Time in the military breeds character, she was told. 

She might have told them that fourteen years in boarding school, from the time she was scarcely out of nappies, is what bred her character. 

Peggy is thirty-two years old and would be considered one of the finest spies in the world if she were a man. As it is, she must endure Federal Plaza. She wears sensible clothes though she cannot lower herself to be dowdy, in any way. Still, there is a certain pleasure in being underestimated and knowing that, dressed in gym clothes or a ballgown, she is eminently capable of carrying out her job.

.

Bucky Barnes is not a great man. He has done some great things and most of those have involved pulling Steve out of danger.

He hasn’t yet assessed Peggy Carter, for danger, or otherwise (though he knows the peril of beautiful women). 

What he knows is limited, tempered by Steve’s perception. Steve has an eye for beauty and Bucky knows enough that he was beautiful once. Now he is simply grotesque. He has not made small children cry but that is because he avoids the elementary school down the block. 

“So, you see, with this titanium alloy, it will be no great weight but you’ll be the neighbourhood arm-wrestling champ before you know it.” 

“Thanks, Stark,” says Bucky, awkwardly pulling his t-shirt back on. 

“Once more with feeling, why don’t you?” Howard flashes him a grin before stroking his ridiculous moustache. It’s the best he can do and Bucky should feel sorry for him. Once, when Bucky was cooling his heels in Honduras and Howard was doing something classified for the US Government, they had a beard-growing competition. Bucky’s non-regulation stubble was a thing of beauty while Howard’s chin was a smooth as the skin of a newborn. Naturally, it all ended when Steve came to collect Bucky and Howard started making increasingly less subtle comments about the importance of a good beard. 

Bucky could have punched him. (Bucky may have punched him but the guaro impaired his memory, and so did the delight at seeing Steve again.)

“Seriously, Barnes, why the long face?” Howard pushes his glasses to the top of his head and turns towards his computer. “You’re at the cutting edge of prosthesis. You could be the poster boy for Stark Industries’ new interest.” Howard peers at him, squinting. Why did he take off his glasses? “No, actually, you could. I hear your mug is pleasing to others.” He pauses. Bucky supposes it’s a significant pause, pregnant with smugness. “Speaking of, how is Captain Rogers? He never comes round no more.” 

“I’m not gonna be your go-between Stark. Seriously, you guys have phones. Use ‘em.” Bucky stands up. He should probably go. “Though you’ll have a devil of a time getting him. He’s all loved up.”

Stark looks up at him, his mouth dropping open in unbecoming shock. “Steve Rogers finally—”

Bucky shakes his head sharply. “She’s a diamond, apparently. Englishwoman. She’ll whisk him off to the UK before we know it.” 

.

“So, even though security is going to be provided by the NYPD and various branches of the US military, as well as a UN observation team, we can expect covert operatives, both sanctioned and unsanctioned, to be in every goddamned corner of this goddamned expo.”

“This is going to be vastly entertaining,” murmurs Peggy. The briefing is dull and repetitive, though it’s hardly Phillips’ fault. 

“Well, you know Stark,” says Dugan. Peggy refuses to call him Dum-Dum, on point of principal. 

“No, actually,” says Peggy. “I have somehow avoided the pleasure.”

Dugan laughs, white teeth and silence. “Probably for the best. He’s a character.”

“So I keep hearing.”

“We expect that operatives from AIM, HYDRA and Ten Rings will be in attendance—” says Phillips.

“Seriously, who comes up with these names?” says Dugan.

“You’re asking me,” says Peggy. “I blame the parents, personally.” 

“Commander Carter,” says Phillips. “Am I boring you?”

“Not you, sir,” says Peggy. “Just the bad guys.”

Phillips humphs but Peggy’s sure she sees a hint of humour in his grizzled face. They get on pretty well. Phillips might be old school but he respects women and he seems to appreciate the expertise Peggy brings to this whole messy mission. 

.

“Thank you for a lovely evening,” Peggy says. “The movie was—”

“I am _so_ sorry,” says Steve. He looks stricken. “It was—”

“One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen?”

“Top ten, anyway.” He smiles down at her. He blushes less now, though he is no less endearing. He is also incredibly respectful and has requested, in total, four goodnight kisses on their previous four dates. “Let me make it up to you. There’s a really good diner down the street from my place. Their apple pie is amazing and their coffee will burn a hole in the pit of your stomach.”

“You sure know how to woo a girl, Steve Rogers,” she says. “Will I get to meet this mysterious roommate of yours?” She nudges his arm. “I’ve heard so much about him—”

Steve looks uncertain. “I can ask. He’s not the most sociable, since his— Well, since we came home.” 

Steve doesn’t talk about Afghanistan, or the Army. He talks about Barnes, though, and the holes in his story are imperfectly patched with khaki and sand. “I’ll text him.” 

.

_2310: hey, buck, you hungry?_  
2310: always. my hunger is insatiable.  
2311: ha. come 2 half-moon.  
2311: ok. now?  
2312: 20 mins. u can meet peggy. :)  
2328: ok. 

.

“I’m just gonna use the restroom,” says Steve. He doesn’t know if that’s a polite thing to say on a sixth date but he’s seldom reached the point at which bodily functions are appropriate conversation. “Buck’ll be here soon.”

“Don’t worry,” says Peggy. “I’m sure we’ll recognise each other.”

Steve doesn’t stop to think about what _that_ means, though the diner is almost empty and the other tables are occupied by couples, apart from one group of teenagers, who wear entirely too much black and laugh like hyenas at the slightest provocation. Steve doesn’t mean to hunch a little, as he walks past, but it figures that a gaggle of Brooklyn teenagers still represent his biggest fear, despite everything he has seen. 

He takes his time in the restroom, thinking that maybe it’ll be easier for Bucky and Peggy to make introductions without him there. Steve Rogers is not a coward. He has medals that prove he is quite the opposite. It is just that he doesn’t always get it right. It’s his expectations, says Bucky. They screw Steve up so bad that he gets disappointed when people aren’t as good as they should or could be; it’s a table of teenagers in black clothes or a corner booth, where two almost-strangers make nice because neither of them are prepared to be the third wheel. 

Steve dries his hands and eyeball himself in the mirror. He has a beard now (better than anything Bucky or Stark can grow and of course he knows about their facial hair contest) and his hair’s a little long. His shirt’s a bit big, loose around the collar but tight at his upper arms, and he either looks like a hobo lost in another dimension or his own true self, hiding in too-big clothes. 

When he steps back into the diner, he worries that Bucky won’t come but he is here. He is here and he is sitting opposite Peggy and they are talking, low and earnest. 

They are not talking like strangers would talk, even scenarios of third wheels and new girlfriends.

“Hi, guys,” Steve says, his voice sounding painfully awkward in his own ears. “So you’ve met.” (Because stating the glaringly obvious will not diminish the awkwardness but it will fill the sudden silence that descends like something leaden.)

“We have,” says Peggy, looking away from Bucky and her smile seems forced. “A number of years ago, actually. Kandahar.”

“You were on some bullshit assignment, Steve,” says Bucky. He doesn’t look away from Peggy. “Saving the world, you know. The usual Captain America stuff. Kandahar was coming down with beautiful British spies.” Finally, he looks up at Steve and his eyes are burning. “I didn’t know your new girlfriend was a beautiful British spy.” 

“You knew the first two, Buck,” says Steve, weakly. It’s not fair, really. He and Peggy don’t talk about work, much. It’s a tacit agreement, like the way they both whip around when a car backfires because the Brooklyn hipsters who don’t cycle haven’t learned the art of auto maintenance. 

“I don’t talk about what I do,” says Peggy. “It’s unutterably boring, for starters.”

“Oh, now,” says Bucky. “You weren’t boring in Kandahar.” 

“And you were considerably more disarming,” says Peggy and, for a second, Steve thinks it’s all going to go horribly wrong. Bucky stiffens and he’ll probably storm out of the diner and Steve will be torn between running after him and staying with Peggy and explaining that they’re not quite at the punning stage yet.

Incredibly, though, Bucky laughs. “Christ, you haven’t changed, Carter.” He looks up at Steve. “C’mon and sit down, Steve. I’m not cut out for entertaining your lady friends all on my own.” The smile, somehow, stays firmly on his face, a shadow of his old cocky grin but its presence makes Steve smile, too. 

Bucky doesn’t laugh again, not that night, but he stays and he drapes his arm along the back of the booth and it’s only when they leave that Steve realises that Bucky’s wearing one of Steve’s hoodies. They are still like little boys, playing dress-up in their fathers’ clothes. 

“Hate to break up a great night,” says Bucky, shuffling a little outside, like he’s cold, though it’s the height of a sweaty New York summer (or the depths, plummeting and humid). “But I got an appointment with Stark tomorrow.”

“Oh, right,” says Steve. “Tomorrow’s the day.”

“Howard Stark?” asks Peggy. “I’m beginning to think the man is a myth. I’ve heard so much about him and never had the pleasure.”

“Plea-sure,” says Bucky, slowly, squinting at her in the neon light of the diner. “Nah, you can’t mean our Howard.”

“He’s not that bad,” says Steve. “He’s designed Bucky a new arm and tomorrow’s the final pre-test before—”

“Before he bribes some surgeons to knock me out so he can turn me into some kind of Frankenstein’s monster. Frankenstark’s monster?”

“No wonder I haven’t met him,” says Peggy. “He’s clearly the busiest man in New York.”

“Never say that to him,” says Bucky. “Or he’ll preen and it’ll be fuckin’ awful.” He kicks at Steve’s ankle. “C’mon, Steve. Take me home or lose me for ever.” 

Steve gapes, looking between Peggy and Bucky, and he leans in and quickly kisses the corner of Peggy’s mouth. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Yes, you will,” says Peggy but she’s smiling and her tone is light. 

.

Jacqueline sends over reinforcements. Perhaps she has heard that Peggy is turning native or perhaps she is simply taking pity on a woman surrounded by men and all their repetitions. 

Lorraine Power is former Army. Peggy wonders if she is to be her replacement, though this is not going to be a fatal mission. 

Lorraine hands her a package, from HQ, and Peggy waits until she has left her office before opening it. 

There is a box of Yorkshire tea and a file marked **[E Y E S O N L Y]** and **[Operation S A N D S N A K E]**.

It tells a story of a Special Ops team, codename: Howling Commandos. It details injuries and losses and Peggy closes it before she can read the report of the commanding officer, Captain Steven G Rogers. 

Oh, that she thought this mission wouldn’t be fatal.

.

Bucky likes running in the rain. It hides how unfit he is, now, and how much he sweats, and how much he gets caught for breath and maybe this is what it was like to be Steve, fighting for every breath when they were small and Steve was the fragile one.

He likes running in Brooklyn in the rain, where the inclines are just enough to make his shins burn. He hasn’t joined the gym, like Steve. He’s not ready for the sympathetic looks from young men who think they know it all and who think they’re too smart to lose an arm. He’s not ready to meet some gorgeous woman, who makes him walk into things and who makes him smile softly and stupidly at a cellphone whenever it buzzes.

He likes running and listening to Leonard Cohen because misery loves company and he always feels out of sorts and out of rhythm anyway. 

Tomorrow, he’s going to be admitted to the Hospital for Special Surgery. He’s already signed consent forms and waivers and goddamned permission slips about how it’s okay that the surgery is filmed. There’s going to be a neurosurgeon and at least two orthopaedic surgeons and the world’s finest biomedical engineers. Howard Stark is going to be there, his smile and his moustache hidden behind a surgical mask. 

Steve Rogers is going to be there and Bucky hates himself a little for making Steve go through this again: hospital waiting rooms and health bulletins. It was awful when Steve’s mom died and Bucky can’t even imagine what Steve went through when they were both hospitalised after that last mission. 

Steve Rogers is going to be there and so is Peggy Carter and if Bucky doesn’t wake up, at least Steve won’t be alone. 

Bucky’s soaking wet when he gets home and Peggy is sitting at their kitchen table, her hands wrapped around Bucky’s favourite mug. She’s wearing Steve’s bathrobe, which is grey with age and a little frayed. Bucky does not flinch though he doesn’t smile. 

“You may be in luck,” he says. “You may actually get to meet Howard tomorrow.”

“Be still my beating heart,” says Peggy, as dry as anything. Her expression is strange, though, and a little sombre, given that it is a summer evening and there’s music drifting down from the upstairs apartment.

“Oh, hey, Buck.” Steve comes out of his bedroom, rubbing at his hair with a towel. “You got caught in it too, huh?” 

Bucky stares at him and goes into the bathroom. 

.

“You draw Barnes a lot,” says Peggy, quietly. She’s curled up on the couch, flipping slowly through Steve’s sketchbook. 

“I— He’s always sat for me, ever since we were kids and I was too sick to go out and play. He swears he doesn’t get bored.”

Peggy finds that hard to believe. Bucky is a belligerent thunderclap of a man, whose presence looms so large that it seems impossible he would be content to stay still. 

“My drawing teacher wants me to focus more on the female form—”

“So why don’t you?”

“I don’t know any—”

Peggy turns to fix Steve with a glare. “No? What was that, Steve?” She flings her arm over her head and laughingly, says, “Draw me like one of your French girls, do!”

Steve goes so pink that it could be their first date again. “I didn’t want to presume I had any, like, _claim_ —”

“Oh, your chivalry is as charming as ever but rest assured that neither my inner nor my outer feminist are remotely insulted.” 

.

“You still haven’t met him?” Betsy giggles into her wine. 

“Oh, I’m pretty sure he was one of the gentlemen dressed in scrubs and surgical gowns but I couldn’t figure out which one. They all look the damned same to me.” 

“How is your— friend?”

Peggy supposes that Bucky is a friend and, at times, it feels as though Steve is nothing more than a friend. She did not lie: his chivalry remains charming but the road to loneliness and poor decisions is lined with chaste kisses. “He’s being kept heavily sedated till tomorrow and then he goes back into the OR for neurosurgical testing. The arm’s attached, anyway. Stark expects him to be at the expo in a fortnight.”

“Bloody hell, really?” Betsy shakes her head and their attentive bartender comes over with the drinks menu. “I sincerely hope that Stark hasn’t weaponised some poor soldier’s _arm_.” She sighs. “And, yet, I wouldn’t put it past him.” 

.

Steve stays at the hospital. He’s not allowed to go into the ICU so he stays outside. The chairs in the waiting room aren’t designed for sleep but he’s slept in considerably less comfortable places in his time. 

Peggy calls by before and after work because she might be an actual angel. 

“He’ll be okay,” she says. “He’s a strong bugger.”

“You mean pig-headed, right?” asks Steve, slumping against her. 

She kisses his cheek. 

“There is something in the air, I think.”

.

“You remind me of my niece,” says Peggy. 

Lorraine looks at her, a little uncertainly. No one has made any tea lady jokes to Lorraine but she is tall and blonde and beautiful. She also carries a taser.

“Well, I’m not sure about looks. The last time I saw her, she was four but she’s really very smart.”

Lorraine frowns. “Look, Commander Carter, I know that you feel you don’t need me here and you’re probably right—”

“She’s just about to graduate from Oxford but she’s had the good sense and better grace to follow her own path.” 

“I assume she’s a little more than four years old now?”

“Oh,” says Peggy. “Yes, she’s twenty-one. You and she have the same— ability, I think. For getting the best out of people.”

“It’s a combination of kindness and intimidation,” says Lorraine, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Between you and me, I think I prefer it here, to HQ. I wish it wasn’t such a short secondment.”

“Don’t we all?” says Peggy, rather absently. “Now, about the CIA delegation—”

.

“He hasn’t woken up yet,” says Steve, softly.

“Is he supposed to have?” asks Peggy. “Or is that a silly question on my part?”

“I don’t— I don’t know,” says Steve. “I don’t know who to ask and Howard’s been called away because of some security snafu at his building.”

“You’re Barnes’ next of kin. They _have_ to tell you, don’t they?”

Barnes looks to be sleeping peacefully, aside from the beeping monitors and the wires and tubes. There are shadows under his eyes, though, that match those under Steve’s eyes.

“Have _you_ slept?” she asks. 

Steve clutches the sketchpad in his hands. His fingers are dark and dusty with charcoal. She understands him a little better now, for all these shadows and for all his little darknesses. 

“Come on.” She pulls her seat closer to his and manages to coax him, despite his bulk and despite the tension in his whole frame, to lie down across the chairs and rest his head in her lap. She puts the sketchpad to the side and strokes his hair as he closes his eyes. 

“Wake me up if he—”

“Of course.” 

Steve’s hair is soft and glides between her fingers. It is spun gold in the dull light of this hospital room. His pocket vibrates and, quickly, trying not to disturb him, she fishes his phone out of his pocket and puts it on top of the sketchpad. She does not mean to see the text notification.

_STARK: gather your boy’s doing well. surgeons will be in on evening round._

.

Peggy goes for a run the next morning. Steve slept for a solid four hours and, when he woke up, he smiled up at her, sleepy and unworried for a few breaths, until he remembered Barnes and, oh, Peggy didn’t mean to resent an unconscious man but she did, in that moment. 

She might have kissed him, then. She might have done anything to soothe away the worry lines. He looked so lost. 

Instead, she took both of his hands in hers. “Steve, I want you to promise me something.” 

He looked up at her and nodded when she made him swear faithfully to leave Barnes’ room, just for a little while. To breathe some of the rarefied upper east side air, though it might go straight to the head of a Brooklyn boy. He nodded and looked stupefied when she pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. 

“And draw me,” she said, lightly. “I want to see how you see me.” 

He opened and closed his mouth soundlessly and, now, as she’s running past Prospect Park, she wonders if it was too flirtatious. Steve has told her that he isn’t good with women or, rather, he’s so good that he places them on a pedestal. Peggy will haul him up next to her, if it’s the last thing she does, and what does it matter if Barnes is clinging to Steve’s ankles? She’ll pull the bloody pair of them up, if that’s what it takes. 

Bucky will get better. Of that, she has no doubt. He doesn’t have a choice for as long as Steve is there to drag him through. 

She stops at the corner of Parkside and Ocean and rests her palms on her knees, bent over double, her ponytail hanging over her face. Breathing does not come easy. Somehow, she thinks this might be the way when it comes to Steve Rogers. 

.

_1312: b’s awake. :)_  
1313: wonderful. have you gone for a walk yet?  
1345: yes’m. thank you. 

.

Peggy is so relieved that it seems like an excellent idea. She might be a little drunk, too, but she and Betsy deserve this evening in Felice, for everything they have to endure as women in a men’s world. 

“Bloody men.” 

“I’ll drink to that.” Their wine glasses clink together and perhaps their voices are a little loud for a fine establishment like this. 

“I feel like it’s, I don’t know, buy one, get one free right now.” Peggy is thoughtful. She is definitely a little drunk, too, so sending the picture, with Betsy’s help, seems like an excellent idea.

.

_UNKNOWN NUMBER: Draw me like one of your French girls_

.

Peggy’s head aches the next day. It’s a Saturday, two weeks before the expo, and she has to get to the hospital. The 6 rocks, side to side, and rattles uptown.

“Dugan,” she says. “What brings you here?” 

He tips his derby. “Just here to see an old Army buddy.” 

“Barnes,” she says. “Of course, the Howling Commandos. Does everyone know _everyone_ in this city?”

“Pretty much,” he says. 

When she reaches Bucky’s room, Steve isn’t there but Bucky’s sitting upright, leafing through Steve’s sketchpad. 

“Carter,” he says. His smile is loose, like his bearing, and she can only assume he’s on some pretty strong painkillers. “Look.” He holds up both arms. “Two hands.” 

“I’m delighted to see that you’re on the mend,” says Peggy. “Steve—”

“Aw, he’s just wondering what he’s got to do to get a raunchy picture message from you.”

“He’s— what?” 

“I know you haven’t met Stark face to face but _that_ was a helluva message your friend sent him—”

“Helluva— _what_?”

Bucky flutters his fingers and his left hand whirrs like a friendly kitchen appliance. “Draw me like one of your French girls?”

Peggy takes her phone out of her bag and texts Betsy.

_1023: what number did you text that picture to???_  
1024: +1 (7777) 095-1234-44. your boo was ++ appreciative.  
1025: not my boo, betsy. that’s not his number  
1026: damn i hope this guy’s hot.  


“Stark can’t draw,” says Bucky, helpfully. “He’s great with blueprints, though. He could totally, like, fix you up a French girl blueprint, like that—” He tries, unsuccessfully, to click the fingers of his left hand. His eyes widen. “But Steve? Steve can draw. He’s an _artist_.”

“You must love him very much,” says Peggy. 

“More’n anyone in the world,” says Bucky and he looks stricken. 

“So do I, I think,” says Peggy even if it’s poor form to say that sort of thing to the best friend. 

“Here you go, Buck, a nice new cup of ice-chips—” Steve stops in the doorway. “Uh, Peggy.”

Peggy looks up at him and isn’t this a reversal of blushing fortune? She can feel her cheeks burn. 

“So, I gather my picture message went astray—?”

Steve walks over to Bucky’s bedside and Bucky lights up and it makes something tug in Peggy’s chest (or else it’s the hangover).

“Steve, you can draw Peggy,” he says, insistently. “I dunno why anyone would ask Stark.” 

“I’d like to draw her,” says Steve, to Bucky. The tips of his ears are red. 

“You should,” says Bucky. “She’s pretty. Did I tell you about Kandahar? I could tell you _things_ about Kandahar.” 

Peggy can’t help it. She rolls her eyes. “I’d say we were drunk but, you know—”

“No alcohol, right,” says Steve. He turns from administering ice chips to Bucky. “You really meant to send that to me?”

“Why on earth would I send Stark a photograph of myself?” she asks.

“Well. You’ve always seemed awfully keen to meet him.”

Peggy laughs. “Bloody hell, I have a hard enough time getting through to you. Why on earth would I try to acquire _another_ New York man?” 

“He’s from New Jersey,” says Bucky. “Doesn’t count.”

.

“So, now what?” 

“I avoid Howard Stark forever. Agent Power, you’re front and centre at the expo.” 

“It doesn’t exactly speak well of British Intelligence, though, does it? That one of our top agents — _snap-chatted_ — one of the foremost weapons manufacturers in the world.”

“No, ma’am. It doesn’t.” 

“Still,” says Jacqueline, rubbing her chin. “It might be useful when it comes to bargaining him down on his products.”

Peggy resists rolling her eyes. “For Queen and country, ma’am?”

“Something like that.” Jacqueline pauses, or perhaps the video feed freezes. “And another thing, Commander Carter.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Colonel Phillips has requested to retain you on a longer-term basis than initially agreed. Does this seem like something you might be interested in?”

Peggy purses her lips and does her utmost not to think about Steve’s shy kisses when he walked her down to the front door of the hospital last night. 

“On one condition, ma’am.”

“And what might that be?” asks Jacqueline, looking more amused than annoyed. 

“That I, in turn, might retain Agent Power’s services.”

Lorraine smiles, seeming almost incredulous and entirely delighted.

.

It is a little like _buy one, get one free_. 

. 

There’s room for one more, in Steve Roger’s mother’s old apartment, between the grey-old bathrobes and the piles of sketchbooks and Steve Rogers’ newfound appreciation for the female form. There’s a truce, to be had, in the future, with apple pie and terrible movies but, for now, Peggy will kiss Bucky’s fingertips and she will kiss the corner of Steve’s mouth and she will run alongside Prospect Park, as summer turns to autumn turns to winter and as snow is folded into Brooklyn like powdery flour.

She knows, when she walks out the door, that they will look at each other, puzzled and tentative, but she will haul them onto this pedestal.

**Author's Note:**

> +Title from The Divine Comedy's _In Pursuit of Happiness_.  
>  +Thanks from lanyon to beardsley for beta-duty and to lilibel for being so wonderful to work with.


End file.
